


i've got a broken mask

by Starful_nights



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Grief, Killjoy Masks, Ouch, Reeducation (mentioned), The Mailbox(Danger Days), h e h e pain, i should stop posting fics when im barely awake, im sorry tbh, no beta we die like the fab four(and also someone in this fic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starful_nights/pseuds/Starful_nights
Summary: No. This is all a bad dream.Candy wouldn't have.Or Glass.No.Queenie must be alive.This is all a lie.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	i've got a broken mask

**Author's Note:**

> :)

It all started with a knock on the door. No, it all started when Queenie- no, back in Battery City, when you were both eleven, no, back when the universe started? What events caused this? What events left you standing here by a mailbox? What would you have to change if you went back in time? 

It really did start with a knock on your door, though. A knock that you haven't heard in ages, a simple rhythm that still made you smile. Maybe you should have left it there, not opened it. That probably wouldn’t have helped anything, but it’s nice to pretend, sometimes. 

“Glassie?” you said, your grin fading as you saw zir face, the tears and blood washing away the grime in their tracks. 

“Fig…”

“Glassie, what happened? Come in!”

And ze didn’t. Maybe if ze had...at it again with the maybe- Stop. It’s happened. Too late. 

So you go out to the side of the warehouse with zem, and you move to wipe away some of the blood, but ze pushes you away. You listen as ze shakily says the names of four of zir crewmates. You briefly wonder why ze didn’t say the one ze was rumoured to go pastel for, ze, Glass Heart, who some others who don’t know zem personally call Ice Heart or Steel Heart, depending on how much they hate zem. Then the word ze said afterward hit you.

Gone.

They’re dead.

Of course, you heard the announcement about Sunshine Killer and Cyberbeam a few weeks ago, but you haven’t seen zem since. Since when, exactly? Maybe a whole year, now. A whole year...you’ve been without each other for a long time before, sure, years and years, but now you were both out in the Zones, you barely ever went for that long. The last year’s been a mess, sure, with Coco’s spine and the Roses meddling and Cyberbeam getting trapped...but there’s no use in making excuses now. Too late.

But...Queenie?

The Queen of Hearts?

The one who basically saved you and your brother, when you were fresh out of the City, shaking from deprivation and dehydration? The one who always looked at you lovingly while you got strong enough to leave the crew where everyone else other than Glass ignored you? 

Gone?

You sit still, the words ze’s saying not reaching your ears just yet, which is good, because you need that moment to process it before it does reach you and all your senses are filed with a boiling hatred, the roar in your ears getting stronger, ripping you out of your shock until you deflate again and slump back down next to zem. 

Candy. It was her. 

He turned on them mid-clap and shot Queenie.

He shot her.

He fucking shot her. 

How dare she? After all Queenie’s done...not just to you, not just to Candy. To everyone in that area of the Zones. And now he’s gone. Back in the City. Probably no memory of ever being in the Zones.

“I could’ve saved her,” Glass chokes, shaking you out of your thoughts. “Candy put the blaster to m’ head before the clap and said if I do anything he’ll kill everyone else in the crew, too. ‘E said he’ll just injure. ‘Course, she lied. Like she always does. I barely got Prickles away.”

A beat of silence, the world still crashing around you but a bit less so. Somehow. These few moments shouldn’t be enough. What the hell.

“Gimme a lighter,” ze says out of nowhere. “I got his mask over ‘ere. No person like this deserves the Witch.”

And maybe you shouldn’t have given it to zem, maybe you should have taken it, stomped on it and put it in the Evil Mailbox, maybe you should have done that, but you gave zem the lighter and maybe this was what sealed zir fate. Maybe not. You’ve said maybe so many times by now and you know you should just let go and stop with all the maybes, the alternate universes where you chose well, if that’s even possible, because you don’t want to believe this isn’t your fault. Just like ze didn’t. 

But the mask is burning, and the light of the flame dances on zir face, making the tears shine and the new injuries glare. Soon, it’s just a pile of ashes ze throws out into the desert, thinking you wouldn't notice the pinch ze put in zir pocket. And then ze moves to leave. Now’s your cue to stop zem.

Oh, wait. No. Ze comes back, squats down next to you and smiles.

“Bye, Figgie. Fig Newton.” ze can’t seem to decide which name to use last, and panic bubbles in your chest.

“Figgie,” Ze decides and cups your face with zir hand. “Figgie, I’m sorry I didn’t see you all last year.” zir voice is rough and so, so sad. “I missed you so much, Figgie.”

“I’m sorry,” you choke, and ze presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I’m sorry, too, Figgie,” ze says and walks away. Gets on zir motorcycle and drives off.

Your last chance to stop zem. 

Gone.

You stare after zem for a while, minutes, hours, seconds, then you get up. Still shocked. 

Queenie. Gone. Cyberbeam’s and Sunny’s deaths sinking in properly, too. Only Prickly Pear left.

You stumble inside.

Walk over to your mattress.

Find your headphones. Turn them on loud, so you can’t hear any of your crewmates. You don’t know what this song is, but you don’t even care. You can barely hear it at this point, it’s just white noise. The ear damage Coco’s always warning you about? Bring it on.

When did you fall asleep? When did someone remove the headphones? When did the morning come? And when did everything fall to pieces?

A knock at the door. Like the one it all started with, except the rhythm isn’t there. You don’t know who’s there yet, but Fox is by the door now, talking to whoever that is. 

“Fig!”

You don’t answer. Why would you?

“Figgie, it’s Prickles!”

You sit up.

“What?” Your voice is a croak. You can feel the dried tears on your face. It’s kind of annoying. Your throat tastes of dust and tears, too. It must be a lot worse for Glass, though.

“Figgy.”

When did Prickle come over here? People move so fast. One day nothing happens, the next everything comes crashing down. 

“Figs…”

“What?”

“Glass...ze...”

“What happened?” you ask roughly. Probably shouldn’t have done that, as Prickles’s eyes fill with tears.

“Ze turned zemself in.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she said, swallowing.

“NO,” you shout, because that can’t be, then you realise that this is Prickles, the one who knew zem the best, however much you wish that rile was yours, but you lost it because of your cowardice that might have been common sense, and you deflate. Prickles, sweet, sweet Prickles who’s like Coco but with a different kind of sharpness, less wild car chases and knife fights, more precise shots from far away and sweet smiles that turn deadly, Prickles who sometimes snuck you extra food even though Qeenie forbid her to, Prickles who was one of the only ones who took a permanent place in Glassie’s heart. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, and you say it again, louder, “I’m sorry,” and again, and again, and all you can do is mutter I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry and after she hugs you gently you murmur “I should have stopped zem from leaving,” which turns into a shout and you’re off, out into the desert, but far, far away from that side of the warehouse, far off into the other direction, not looking at the place where some of the ash is still there, not looking at the bloodstains falling off from zir face, not looking at the motorcycle marks.

Glass Heart is gone, after all.

Probably already through thought reassignment. What happened to that soul? It’s not in the afterlife. Or here. Or anywhere. Apart from the mask, maybe… part of you wants to burn it like ze did with Candy’s, but you don;t even have it. Prickles will do whatever she wants with it. Her choice.

You go back in.

“Thanks for telling me, Prickles. I’m sorry.” Your voice sounds so normal. What the hell.

She gulps and hands you something.

“I can’t decide what to do...you knew zem better, I think. I was only a crewmate. You were zir best friend for so long.”

“Didn’t ze go pastel for you? And anyways, there’s no such thing as ‘just a crewmate’.”

“No, ze didn’t. Sometimes rumours are just that. Well, from zir side, anyways. Please. You deserve it more.”

You sigh and take it before her words sink in, and you say sorry again, and run. Away. She doesn’t follow, yet, but she will, soon. You run. Then walk.

Just walk under the sun. 

Just walk. 

This was a bad idea, and you’re going to get lost, probably. But you know the way to the mailbox by heart by now. Even on foot. You were always tasked with taking the strangers’ masks to the ‘box, the others hated it. You found peace in it, somehow.

Now, of course, you don’t.

And that’s how you end up here.

Staring at your childhood best friend’s mask, the one who told you about the things ze learnt from the Bookworms illegally, who dreamt about escaping the city and doing it at eleven, who found you when you finally had the courage to follow. 

And you stare at the mask you’ve seen many times, even after you went off to have your own crew, because the amount of claps you still ended up in together was ridiculous, and no matter who else ze or you knew, ze would always be your best friend and you zirs, and you remember the time you painted the dot on the mask right there, next to the right eye, to symbolize something, you forget what, and you remember zir laugh and all the years you wasted in the City being a coward, where ze just went back voluntarily, and you grip the mask and tears are running down your face and when did you end up by the mailbox? 

You break the mask into two because you can’t do anything else, because you wouldn’t dare set it on fire just like ze did, not even twenty-four hours ago, before following the traitor ze renounced, and you want to put it in the mailbox, maybe even go find an angry one, the ones littered with hateful messages and scorch marks and kicks and graffiti saying ‘go fuck yourself’, but you can’t because ze’d never do that, ze was Glass Heart, for ’Stroya’s sake, ze believed, and had ze had the time to start a revolution, Battery City had been burned to the ground by now.

But ze did.

**Author's Note:**

> the inspiration for this came from multiple places but it all boils down to the wkil discord tbh
> 
> moondragon if u see this i loved the lemon boy fic and uh. inspiration may have struck related to that


End file.
